Don't "listen", "do"!

Firstly let gets this out the way, in a comment my post on our new broadcast, anders defends it by saying that the people's stories are real. Look, I'm not suggesting they weren't real, that we don't have the best policies, that we aren't the only ones to have any, that we aren't different from other parties, that we wouldn't take positive action or that we wouldn't listen but...

My (numerous!) points are purely presentational.

Obviously we should be and are a listening party unlike the others. The problem is the "establishment parties" (great phrase that Nick has used and should use more often) say they are too and say it ALL the time. The public know they're not. Every time Gordon Brown loses a by-election he comes on and makes a speech that no-one believes about how the government has to listen.

No-one believes it!!! Saying we need to listen has become a shortcut to saying standard, insincere, duplicitous, only looking out for their own jobs politician scum with no ideas to offer!

Even if I had got through the awful "emotive" music and the awful acting, I would have switched off our PPB as soon as Nick had started talking about listening, having learnt all I need to know about the LibDems. I thought they may be just the same as all the others, now I know they are.

Sadly, I always watch LibDem stuff (when I can find it) willing it be good and make full use of any opportunity to be heard we can grab so I did watch it all the way through. I found myself almost screaming at the screen... okay I did actually scream, how sad is that! Feel sorry for the missus!

Nick quite rightly said in his speech that Cameron has "tried to take over every comforting, soft-focus word in the dictionary". Well, they haven't just tried, they have mostly succeeded. It was absolutely right that we should mock his use of them (but more aggressively, custard? come on! Someone's been watching too much Russell Howard on Mock The Week!) to make it harder for him and hope the public realise.

Except I think they do. By taking over these words Camerom has also devalued them (to the level of "listen", and , to be fair this isn't just Cameron as it has been going on for longer) which means even we can't sound sincere using them.

So we shouldn't. Use them that is.

Also this is all the more imperative as the media/establishment parties are trying to push the dismissive "Nick is Cameron-lite" angle. Only this morning on Today they had a quick round up of the sketchwriters response to Nick's speech which all sounded very negative. They quoted Quentin Letts saying Nick was a "Cameron tribute act". I know we can all dismiss this as deliberately biased rubbish designed to undermine us (esp. from the Daily HateMail) which it is but that's not the point, it works! The media feeds on itself, the BBC repeated it this morning (as it's a good line which fits in with there easy 2-party story) and soon it will become the public memory of the speech.

We have to do everything we can to not appear like the others. I know we're not and we keep talking about how we should be edgy but I don't see it.

We should change things around, instead of saying:

This is a terrible problem, look here's someone with that terrible problem, we should be listening and as Liberal Democrats we would...

surely we should say:

Bam! Liberal Democrats would do this! In order to solve this problem.
Bam! Liberal Democrats would do this! In order to solve this problem.
etc.
Go on, ask the others what they would do.

Do
Do
Do

not

Listen
Listen
Listen